Debate on social insurance reform
It is true that the social insurance problem has started affecting the economy and threatening the viability of certain state banks. This is because the managers of state banks used to undermine the future of these institutions by striving to maintain peaceful labor relations. But the unusually blunt language used by the managing director of Attica Bank should have been avoided, even if it is justified, for one good reason: Banks do not operate in a vacuum and so every comment by their directors has an impact on their future. This was evident in the performance of Attica Bank’s stock yesterday. Tryphon Kollintzas’s testimony to Parliament’s transparency committee also proves that, despite the government’s delaying tactics, debate on social insurance reform has already begun. Further, even if the situation in some banks is not as desperate now, it will become so if social insurance reforms are delayed further.
